The Face of Heart Failure

     Having chronic illnesses has been really life-altering for me. I was not prepared to find out that I have chronic kidney disease on top of everything else that's going on. I spent four days in the I.C.U and had to receive six units of blood because of severe blood loss due to my heavy menstrual bleeding.      I know I should have taken care of this back in 2012 when the OBGYN at the other hospital told me to see a gynecologist after they had to give me five units then. In the past five years, I have had three blood transfusions. My OBGYN Dr. Julia said that I was losing blood faster than I could replace it. Dr. Bowes who was the staff internal medicine was trying to comfort me, but all I could think about was not feeling like a woman, with children were not possible.      I know that the hysterectomy has to be done, but I wanted to wait until after Christmas before having to think about such a heavy subject. Something else that's scary is that because I waited so long to

     I fell last Friday. More like collapsed onto the floor. I was in the bathroom pulling up my pants when I got extremely dizzy and fell to the floor wedging myself in between the toilet and my electric chair. Now mind you, I have seen those ads on t.v. saying "I've fallen, and I can't get up." Not knowing that would be me.      I was in and out of it. My neighbor came, but she is a tiny woman and could not help me up off the floor. I wouldn't let her call 911 because I did not want yet another medical bill, that was careless on my part. I lay on the floor for eight hours until my soon to be ex-husband came to sign the divorce papers, but took me to Lakewood Ranch Medical Center.      Once there, the staff took really good care of me. I was on DEFCON-10, to put it mildly. Being at the hospital was an issue for me. It brought me right back to 2009 when I spent ten days in the cardiac ICU. I was essentially bleeding to death with my menstrual cycle. I had lost b